Nvidia is making buying a gaming laptop more confusing

Gaming notebooks that feature the powerful graphics chips from the Nvidia RTX 30 series are now available. I took a first look at MSI’s 2021 GS66 Stealth with the RTX 3080, and my colleague Monica Chin published two reviews for launch day: the Asus ROG Flow X13 (with its RTX 3080 detachable eGPU) and the MSI GP66 Leopard with RTX 3070.

We found something strange: an RTX 3070 can now be faster than an RTX 3080 in some cases. We saw this firsthand in some benchmark runs, where the RTX 3070 on the GP77 Leopard slightly overtook the RTX 3080 on the GS66 Stealth. It wasn’t an explosion, just a few more odd frames per second in benchmarks built on games like Horizon: Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. But it shouldn’t be happening, right?

It seems like a big controversy, but the explanation is not new. It just became something darker than it needed to be. Nvidia is no longer adding “Max-Q” labels to the weakest and most energy-efficient variants of its laptop GPUs, so you can no longer easily tell if you are getting a full-fat GPU.

The RTX 3080 in the GS66 Stealth is actually a Max-Q variant with a boost clock of 1,245 MHz and a maximum power of 95 watts, which is almost as weak as an RTX 3080 can achieve, according to the technical specifications of the Nvidia. But customers probably wouldn’t know that by looking at the case of this laptop, the MSI website or the various retailer websites that sell this model. The GP66 Leopard, on the other hand, is using an RTX 3070 that has a higher frequency and more power than normal, which explains why it managed to advance a few times during our tests.

Image: Nvidia

Like NotebookCheck explains, there is a wide variety of powers for which each RTX 30 series laptop chip can be configured – but that depends on the type of laptop the manufacturer wants to sell.

Thinner and lighter gaming laptops tend to use dial-up versions of Max-Q from Nvidia graphics chips for better efficiency (indicated as GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q in the past, for example), while others use those that don’t have Max – Q branding and therefore can be trusted to provide better performance that is more similar to the desktop versions of the GPU. Now, Nvidia is allowing manufacturers to hide which one they are using on a laptop. It allows companies to treat Nvidia’s mobile video cards in a spec sheet as if they all perform consistently across devices, but that is far from true.

This lack of transparency is the main difference between how these RTX 30 series graphics chips are being marketed compared to previous generations that used Max-Q chips, and can lead to many confused people. Nor does Nvidia require manufacturers using Max-Q graphics chips to have Max-Q stickers on the laptop, which was previously done.

Naturally, MSI is not the only company that is already taking advantage of this. The Asus TUF Dash 15 and the Gigabyte Aorus 15G I am testing claim to have the RTX 3070, but each omits the crucial information that you are getting the Max-Q variant of the chip. Like the MSI laptop, you won’t find a detailed analysis of the GPU clock speed or power requirements on the box or in the retail lists.

This is crucial information for communicating to people, as they all confirm whether you are getting a slower Max-Q variant or a faster standard part.

Cameron Faulkner / The Verge photo

Why would Nvidia make this change, knowing that most ordinary consumers would fall for it? When I asked, a spokesman said The Verge that “strongly encourages[s] OEMs should list watches and other technologies that a laptop supports, including Advanced Optimus, Dynamic Boost 2 and more. ”Judging by the manufacturers’ websites so far, this“ incentive ”doesn’t seem to be working.

Nvidia also says that the Nvidia Control Panel application, which is accessible only after you paid for and set up one of these laptops, it now provides more specification information than before. It is not very useful.

When I pressed Nvidia about whether it would work to make these details more transparent to customers when they are researching which laptop to buy, a spokesman said the company is “looking at additional ways to give consumers more insight before purchase”. It seems that a simple way to do this would be to keep a playlist of each model with detailed specifications, as Nvidia does with G-Sync compatible monitors.

There is always a degree of uncertainty regarding the performance of each laptop in the real world. The Max-Q brand, at the very least, helped customers immediately see that they were purchasing a machine with a graphics chip that had a lower clock speed, thus resulting in slightly reduced performance than you would get on the fat chip. Now, you’ll have to read comparative reviews or wait for Nvidia to reverse its policy that allows manufacturers to keep people in the dark.

We will update this post if and when Nvidia shares its plans to improve transparency for customers.